*FINALLY*

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: Pariah

Flash can hit about 70MB/s which due to the practically 0 access time it has makes it a true 70MB/s under all circumstances. That's very fast under normal usage patterns.

True, but "mainstream" flash (i.e. cheap) is around 6 MB/sec or so... slower than a HD. Fast flash is significantly more expensive than cheap flash.

For example you can get a gig of around "35x" flash media for like $50-70 or so. That's ~5.5 MB/sec. But a gig of "70x" is almost double the price, and you're only at ~11 MB/sec. for 50+ MB/sec you're talking EXPENSIVE flash. Not a little expensive... VERY expensive.

Flash is not a comparable product in terms of throughput. Though it does hold a charge. It also has relatively limited write cycles. Though for most of the applications discussed, writing is not going to be a major issue.

I'm aware of what is going on in the flash market. None of the above is relevant, as I'm not talking about the MP3 player/digital camera flash memory. I'm only talking about the high end flash that is already being used now in highend SSD drives.

It's absolutely relevant! You start talking high end flash and you start talking about multiple hundreds per gig. That totally moves the product out of the reach of all but the most insane.

I agree that access time is the most important. I didn't think I disputed that at all. I was simply pointing out that 70MB/sec flash is not going to make it into a consumer level product like Gigabyte is trying to market because the costs involved would make it way too expensive for the intended market.

We're talking about a Toyota here, and what you're saying, essentially is "But there's this Ferrari thingy over here that is so much better for your intended application." No joke it's so much better, it costs a boatload more.

Yes high end SSD is good and fast. No, we can't afford it.

 

[flashbacck]

Originally posted by: BalAtWork
Just between my friends alone, I bet within a year or two I could collect enough sticks of memory to make a 200G HD for free based on this approach. I mean as soon they change the memory standard all the old stuff becomes dirt cheap to buy and free in old systems discarded.

This is exactly right. I don't know why people are getting hung up on spending "$250" on DDR. You're gonna have old sticks as DDR fades from use, so you might as well find a use for them.

And what's this talk about requiring a Gigabyte mobo? That's the stupidest assumption.

 

[ionoxx]

It would be a good idea to have drivers or a tool that could dump the contents of the memory drive to a hard disk when the system goes onto battery or when it shuts down. If you do go past the 16 hours you have everything on the Hard drive.

 

[Sqube]

Something like that wouldn't be too difficult to cobble together, assuming it didn't come packaged with the hardware to begin with.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I think its usefullness is fairly limited, but I'd be interested enough to spend $50 to pick one up. I've got a couple of gigs of extra DDR.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Where are you getting 117MB/sec?

From actual benchmarks of the product.

RAM disk add-in card - Gigabyte's fast data storage

So again, where are you getting 300MB/s from besides your fanciful imagination? Where have you seen SATA II attached to this product anywhere? No where, because the benchmarks show this is obviously a SATA I product.

Also you dont need a gigabyte mobo, way to read the article.

From Anand's own article:

Gigabyte Brings Solid State Storage to the Mainstream

"In an effort to differentiate themselves from other motherboard manufacturers, Gigabyte has introduced a number of interesting add-ons for their motherboards, the most interesting of which is their $50 RAMDISK PCI card."

Pretty difficult to differentiate your boards, if your add-ons work on everyone else's boards. Way to read the article.

That may not be a SATAII motherboard they tested it on.

 

[Brian23]

I highly doubt that Gigabyte would make this card only work with their mobo. It's an enthusiast card to start with, why would they want to limit their market?

 

[ai42]

Originally posted by: Brian23
I highly doubt that Gigabyte would make this card only work with their mobo. It's an enthusiast card to start with, why would they want to limit their market?

Because an enthusiast would be nutty enough to get rid of thier old mobo setup to use something this cool!

FYI I'm not sure if this was posted...
Short article on iRAM

Curious bit in there is that apparently by simply having the computer shut down it still draws power off the PSU/PCI and does not use the battery unless it is physically discoeccted from the wall (who disconnects thier computer completely a lot anyway?). Which makes this product a bit more attractive.

 

[trikster2]

I'm in.

I have several games that let you run out of the directory. Would love the fast load/zone times offered by a drive like this. If it looses it's memory I would just drag and drop the gamefiles from the hard drive.

Also for video/photo editing I imagine having an ultrafast scratch drive could speed things up a bit.....

 

[Pariah]

That may not be a SATAII motherboard they tested it on.

Obviously it isn't. And why do you think they chose not to use one to demo there new SSD card at one of the biggest trade shows of the year, because Gigabyte the motherboard maker couldn't find one? That's completely idiotic. If the card was SATA II compatible, it would have been demo'd on a SATA II motherboard. Let it go, you're wrong.

I was simply pointing out that 70MB/sec flash is not going to make it into a consumer level product like Gigabyte is trying to market because the costs involved would make it way too expensive for the intended market.

Really, based on what? When was the last time you priced out a highend flash SSD? Would you like to quote the prices of some actual products for us? You think the recently announced Samsung 2.5" flash drives are going to run $4000+ for the 8GB and larger sizes? Somehow I doubt Samsung would make such a big deal about this product release and tout the benefits they are going to bring to the notebook market if the drives cost 2 grand and up.

I highly doubt that Gigabyte would make this card only work with their mobo. It's an enthusiast card to start with, why would they want to limit their market?

Because Gigabyte probably knows that the only people dumb enough to buy this product probably won't have any problem plunking down money for a new motherboard as well. Look how much people waste on CPU coolers and video cards with extravagant cooling vs the stock models with standard cooling. For someone dropping $800 on an Athlon FX or a grand on SLI video, a $150 for a motherboard doesn't mean much. Gigabyte probably believes that the slightly lower volume they will sell this product in will be made up for by the increase in motherboard sales they will inherit.

 

[cryptonomicon]

ok, why not have the PCI card have a power plug in the back of the PCI card that connects to an external AC power adapter so you can just leave the ram slot powered on all the time? seems like an awesome idea to me

 

[Pariah]

The PCI bus is supplied with enough power to keep the card "on" even when the PC is off. This is what makes things like wake on LAN possible. There's no need for an external power source. If the power goes out in your house, having the card plugged into a wall outlet won't make any difference.

Oddly, the price just went up to $60, and the battery life dropped to 12 hours:

InfoWorld

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Pariah
The PCI bus is supplied with enough power to keep the card "on" even when the PC is off. This is what makes things like wake on LAN possible. There's no need for an external power source. If the power goes out in your house, having the card plugged into a wall outlet won't make any difference.

Oddly, the price just went up to $60, and the battery life dropped to 12 hours:

InfoWorld

sounds like crap reporting to me, ill wait for reviews. You could be just as right as i am, captain pessimist.

 

[Penth]

Why didn't they just make it SATA II in the first place. I'm waiting for Version 2

 

[glugglug]

PCI is only 133MB/s, slower than SATA. So making the card SATA-II would offer absolutely no advantage.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

I find the idea of a 4GB solid state drive for less than $500 quite enthralling. Does anyone know where to get 2GB sticks of DDR for cheap?

 

[klah]

http://www.presence-pc.com/actualite/gigabyte-ram-10137/

Thomas Chang, a product manager, Giga-byte, said, unlike DRAM-based main memory, the IRam card doesn't lose data when the PC is switched off. As long as the PC is plugged into a socket, a very small amount of current continues to run through some parts of the system, including the PCI slots. This provides enough power to make sure that no data is lost.

The battery is only used when your electricity goes out. If you live somewhere where the power is down for more than 16 hours at a time you should probably invest $50 in a UPS. If your machine is going to be unpowered for more than 16 hours run Ghost, problem solved.


http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/05/31/gigabyte_ramdisk/

The add-in card currently supports up to 4GB of DDR1 memory, and we understand that it is possible to link two cards together for a RAM Disk with a RAID array.

If this is true then I assume the max is 8GB. Time to start scrounging around the basement for the old pc2100.

 

[imported_Starman]

This might work well for some light video editing (with some imagination transferring saved files to larger drives) and for my purposes: audio recording. In building a digital audio workstation you always want the fastest hard drive and this would certainly be it!

 

[T9D]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Where are you getting 117MB/sec?

From actual benchmarks of the product.

RAM disk add-in card - Gigabyte's fast data storage

Well I can't figure out why you are being such a pessimist either. From that link you gave the ram drive is like off the charts and pegged at the top of the bench mark all the way across! And it's just the first generation prototype here it seems.

"We ran some benchmarks on the drive, and found that it was over twice as fast as a typical SATA drive. The card uses a standard PCI slot for power, while all data is transferred across a SATA cable."

Seems like it kicks arse to me. And yes as explained earlier if you've ever played an MMO game the hardrive gets absolutely THRASHED in many areas. And it causes slow down and stuttering. sounds like this drive is the answer.

 

[cryptonomicon]

what the hell? im getting pissed now.

first $50, then somewhere it said $60, and now umm.

"The RAM disk will be shipping in the third quarter of this year and will carry a price tag of about $80. "

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050601_115506.html

graah

 

[Continuity27]

Originally posted by: glugglug
PCI is only 133MB/s, slower than SATA. So making the card SATA-II would offer absolutely no advantage.

This isn't on the PCI bus!

The PCI slot provides the power only. It connects to a SATA port via SATA cable for bandwidth.

 

[Penth]

Originally posted by: cryptonomicon
what the hell? im getting pissed now.

first $50, then somewhere it said $60, and now umm.

"The RAM disk will be shipping in the third quarter of this year and will carry a price tag of about $80. "

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050601_115506.html

graah

I think the price will keep going up. They need to remember it's going to cost like $250-300 to populate this with 4GB. Come on Gigabyte, keep the price gouging low.

 

[UNCjigga]

Why not a SATA2 interface so one could use DDR333 instead of DDR200? PCIe is meaningless, no way for it can be "talked to" directly over PCIe as a drive.

It would rock to have one of these, and if MS could program Longhorn so that games or anything using DirectX preloads levels and textures to the RAMdisk. Would bring PC gaming latency down to (or beyond) console level.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Where is my RAMDrive!!!

 

[Topweasel]

Just did a search and i found this website that did a review. http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/iramdisk-gbt-1.htm. Page three was a bit hard to translate and Chinese apears to be the language used but bablefish had a problem going through to page three and had to start from there to continue on (hope that made sense). Two important things i Found when going over the review. First the memory doesn't even run at 100MHz (or 200 DDR or PC1600) but actually runs at ~86.7 (177 DDR or i am to tired to figure out exact speed MB/s wise) still more then is needed. The other thing is the SATA controller used is only SATA 150 MB/s but should be easy to change for what ever version they want to use. Finally they ran it on an Intel 955x board for all the benchmarks, this means it is not limited to a gigabyte only board unless the change it later. It would be kind of hard though since it isn't a controller there is no BIOS and since it is used as a HDD there is not drivers that need to be install (besides the normal SATA drivers for controllers that don't run in a compatibility mode). The Big and only thing I would change is the SATA controller change it to a SATA II or SATA 3G and I would be very happy.